During the recent reunion weekend, in a public meeting, President Shapiro said “No” to the suggestion that Williams should post on its website the Forms 990 it submits on an annual basis to the IRS, even though the information in these forms is, by law, open to the public. Details on this exchange coming shortly.

6 Responses to “Greater Financial Transparency? Morty says “No.””

hwc says:

He doesn’t want the salary and subsidized mortgage and investment conflict information to be readily available.

For example, did you know that Williams College invests endowment funds with funds managed by Trustees Greg Avis and David Coolidge? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but with the endowment cratering, questions might be asked.

Refusing to post/link (and thereby make easily accessible) documents that Williams is legally required to file with the government and that are publicly (but much more cumbersomely) available through the government makes Williams, to my mind, 1) look as though it has something unseemly to hide, 2) makes me extremely interested in the contents of documents that (realistically) probably would otherwise have very little interest to me, 3) provides questionable moral leadership by example/refusal to act to students, and 4) causes me to have far less respect for the top administrators than I might otherwise. Williams benefits from tax exemptions on much of its income and holdings and most donors benefit from tax deductions for gifts to the school. I’d like to know more about (or easily be able to look into) how it accounts for its income and holdings, which I and all other taxpayers subsidize.

1. As noted in the post, the College is obliged by regulations to show the most recent tax returns to anyone who shows up at the main office and asks to examine them. It would be worth the try to walk over to Hopkins and ask to see a copy. You could not remove them, unless you are prepared to pay copying expenses, but must examine them on the premises.

2. If the administration won’t post them, Ephblog can easily download the tax returns from GuideStar and post them here. However, Guidestar typically does not have them up until many months after they are submitted to the IRS.

2) The “public meeting” that John is referring to was Morty’s traditional 4:00 PM Friday talk to alumni. I hope that future presidents keep with Morty’s tradition of straight-shooting and total honesty in this venue.

3) When John raised this question at the meeting, I knew that I had found a kindred spirit. The more transparency at Williams, the better.

4) I am hopeful that John will have the time and energy to find and post the tax documents referenced above. I have never seen them. I also hope that he will provide some detailed commentary on past Form 990s. There is much valuable information here, stuff that, alas, I don’t understand well enough to comment on. Perhaps a post every Wednesday on “Interesting Things in the Form 990?”